Loss of net neutrality: The beginning

The regulations were changed with the promise of providing "better" internet access. Internet carriers were given free rein to charge what they liked for traffic on their networks. “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty carriers are free to rule at last,” exclaimed Bill Paider, a fictional carrier executive paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr. "We've even published a Carrier Code of Conduct to guide our improved public service!"

Change is in the air

The new regulations split the IoT industry into the haves and the have-nots. Larger IoT firms flourished, as they could pay the higher access fees to connect their sensors to the cloud. Startups that couldn’t afford the higher fees struggled to survive. VC funding to new IoT startups dried to a trickle. Sales of the carrier’s own IoT services soared because they didn’t have to pay the higher access fees. IoT services from large firms became "more" equal.

It’s all for the public good ...

“We have a new mandatory certification process for IoT devices that connect to our network. The $54,000 certification fee is for the public good and barely covers our costs,” explained Paider. “Rumors that certifications take eight months just aren’t true. Often we do them in seven months.”

IoT devices can still connect to the network, but they have to be carrier-certified first. The long lead times and high costs for IoT device certification slowed down the rate of innovation. On the plus side, certification has become a lucrative profit center for the carriers.

Health-monitoring applications that produce a high volume of sensor data were the first to suffer. Their popularity declined as sensor readings became less dependable due to higher network latency and increased packet loss. IoT-based predictive maintenance and security monitoring services were the next to fade. In theory, network traffic was still treated fairly by the carriers, but in practice, traffic from profitable applications was treated more fairly.

The only game in town

Cellular internet access wasn’t the only way to connect IoT devices to the cloud. Firms offering radio signal-based access (such as LoRaWAN and Sigfox) began to decline in 2019 when their cost for cellular backhaul was tripled by the carriers. Soon cellular access became practically the only game in town to remotely connect IoT devices. A few small radio signal-based IoT projects do survive in remote mining towns. All forms of IoT device access are good, but cellular was best!

“It’s only fair that valuable IoT services such as security alerts pay higher usage fees for network access,” justified Paider. “It’s not that the applications require a lot of bandwidth. It’s about the value of the information their network packets contain. This is not price gouging!”

The major IoT services "voluntarily" entered into revenue-sharing agreements with carriers. Revenues declined, and layoffs followed. Fortunately, many of the laid-off IoT developers were able to find work at the now extremely profitable carriers.

IoT services in rural areas and small towns disappeared once the major carriers realized it was much more profitable for them to invest in increasing their infrastructure in the bigger cities.

“We just don’t see a lot of demand for IoT services from rural areas, so we're not adding any more network capacity there. IoT devices everywhere do have internet access everywhere—just as long as they are in a big city,” commented Paider (paraphrasing Henry Ford). Paider, as you can tell by now, loves paraphrasing.

Feedback welcome

IoT firms and consumers complained, but they still needed connectivity to organize and protest. Complaints against unfair access soon faded as carriers raised the internet access fees for the protestors.

“This isn’t a freedom of speech issue,” said Paider. “People are welcome to complain, but first they have to pay us for access to get their voices heard online. We’ve clarified this in our new Code of Conduct”.

Deepak Puri is the founder of SkilledAnalysts, an IoT consulting firm based in San Francisco. Formerly he held executive positions at Oracle, Netscape and VMware. Deepak co-founded Democracy Labs, a non-profit hub that applies innovative technologies and expertise with progressive causes and campaigns. He also serves on the board of the Tides Foundation.